New principals, assistant principals assigned at 56 Metro schools

Changes taking effect immediately

Email | Print By Amy Griffith

High-level school leadership changes have been enacted at 56 Nashville public schools following a Tennessee Department of Education-prompted look at district principals and assistant principals. The changes are taking effect immediately.

For a complete list of the new assignments, click here for a link to The City Paper’s Political Animals blog.

Connie Smith, accountability chief for the state DOE, announced the changes to the Board of Education and to the public this morning. The changes were made with the collaboration of six district curriculum leaders, who were hired as a result of the state’s reorganization of the central office curriculum office earlier this summer.

“We looked throughout the system for talent,” Smith said.

Most new principals and assistant principals were hired from positions at Metro Nashville Public Schools, though at least one was recruited from outside the district. At McGavock High School, a national search for a new principal will be conducted while the school is led, in the meantime, by former Martin Luther King Magnet Principal Mildred Saffel-Smith.

Mike Tribue, who had been principal at McGavock, has been moved to the position of assistant principal at Cane Ridge High.

Of the principals who have been replaced through the changes, Smith said that most were not moved to assistant principal positions. Some were offered teaching jobs, and others were fired.